Thursday 1 May 2014 15.53 EDT
First published on Thursday 1 May 2014 15.53 EDT

The future of Papworth hospital, the renowned centre of medical advances, has been secured after the Treasury finally approved its long-planned move to Cambridge.

Under Treasury plans, Papworth had been facing a move to Peterborough to help prop up the loss-making local hospital.

But after sustained lobbying by MPs, doctors, senior NHS figures and Cambridge University, ministers have endorsed the business case for Papworth moving to the new Cambridge Biomedical Campus of medico-scientific research.

An independent clinical review found the case for Papworth moving to Cambridge to be compelling and that there would be "minimal patient and clinical benefits" to it being in Peterborough, where it would have taken over the unused fourth floor of Peterborough City Hospital.

The chancellor, George Osborne, said last week that there was a "very strong case" for Papworth becoming part of the campus, which will ultimately employ 30,000 people, to "create a hub of leading-edge medicine, research and pharmaceutical development" .

A financial assessment of that plan by Monitor, the NHS economic regulator, concluded that it was affordable, despite the planned new Papworth hospital being part-funded through another PFI deal.

Prof Sir Leszek Borysiewicz, the vice-chancellor of Cambridge University, welcomed the "good news for patients, good news for research and good news for UK PLC" and praised Papworth's pioneering role in heart and lung transplants.